Hello..last week I was snatching and did not completely lock out my arms, and I dropped the barbell on my upper back. It was 42kg..unlike times in the past a barbell has rolled down my back, this pretty violently struck my back..and I was instantly in pain. I had to lay there for a while before I could move..at first I thought I had seriously injured myself. As a fairly new olympic weightlifter, this is really the first injury I've experienced. I immediately went to a doctor, got an x ray..they told me nothing serious, just swelling..it's not even visibly bruised, just tight and painful when the muscle is used. I felt a lot better and decided to try and squat. Empty barbell was fine. Loaded some weight...no way..very painful. Back or front squats. Tried overhead squats..no. Tried snatching/cleaning an empty barbell...no. So far I've been able to do some lunges, benchpress and actually tried a hack squat machine in my attempts to find something to make up for a squat. My question is, how long until I'm able to actually get back to olympic lifting? And in the meantime, what can I do to at least maintain my strength level?

Thank you for your response..I took a week off of Olympic lifting after I injured my back and during this period I continued to benchpress and I did lunges with dumbbells in my hands as this did not aggravate my back. Last week I went back to Olympic lifting with lighter weights. My back felt better, and now is feeling more sore. I began squatting again last week, there is some pain but I attributed it to swelling and continued to squat..being careful, slow and controlled with the reps. Reaching the bottom of a squat is difficult, as my back feels pretty inflexible. My question is should this be a concern? Or is this soreness/tightness just due to a bit of swelling still hanging around? Kinda concerned.

I imagine you're tight from not having squatted for a week. Spend more time than usual warming up your ankles and hips before your squats, and keep the weight light until that swelling/discomfort starts going away.